Digital Music Services Go Mainstream

After more than a decade of declining revenues, the global music industry returned to (modest) growth in 2012. Fueled by a 9 percent increase of digital music revenues, global recorded music revenue grew 0.3 percent to $16.5 billion. That's according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), who published its annual "Digital Music Report" yesterday.

Digital music revenues reached $5.6 billion last year, i.e. digital music now accounts for more than one third of the industry's total. The number of people using digital subscription services jumped 44 percent to 20 million worldwide. In some countries subscription services such as Spotify are already more popular than paid downloads, but downloads still make up the lion's share of digital music revenues.

Overall, the adoption of digital music services continues to grow. 62 percent of the 7,502 internet users surveyed by IPSOS on behalf of the IFPI used some kind of legal digital music service in 2012.